“I think it’s worth asking questions about what Saudi investment means for the security of Saudi dissidents and debate around Saudi issues. Will requests for actions against users be filtered through Alwaleed? Requests for user data, or for the promotion of some networks?” said David Kaye, a law professor at UC Irvine.
The infiltration allowed the Saudi government to identify individuals who were criticising the kingdom’s government from anonymous Twitter accounts – leading to at least one arrest of a young man, Abdulrahman al-Sadhan,in Saudi Arabia for using a parody account to mock the Saudi government. It is far from clear whether demands by some US senators for a national security review will be taken up by the Biden administration. Rules surrounding such reviews by the US Committee on Foreign Investment , which has the power to unwind transactions if they are deemed to threaten US national security, have usually been triggered when the foreign entity has assumed control of a company or asset. This is not the case in the Musk deal.